I remember that Olympus insisted on the capability of this lens for street shooting, but I don't think that its main strength is in isolating the subject. I've just checked with DOF master and if your subject is 3 meter away, every thing will be in focus till 6 meter behind, even at f2, plus in the background things won't look very blurred. I think that what makes this lens interesting for street photography on the contrary is to be able to shoot with zone focusing in MF, making use of the large DOF of such a short lens and of it's unique DOF scales.

If you set it at 2 meters using the distance scales and f5.6, everything will be in focus from 1m to infinite. And at f4, you'll be in focus from 0.9m up to 9.7m.

F2 will allow you to shoot in low light, for instance in the subways, in coffee shops, during the night, or indoors.

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rrr_hhh

Yes, the "street lens" aspect is important, and it is one reason why I bought the 12mm over the 9-18. Apart from landscapes and interiors, I also intend to use it for street-shooting in tight places, such as Asian markets which are often covered and therefore rather dim (f2 aperture helpful here). I'm also keen to expand my photographic skills by trying zone focusing, for which the 12mm has a well-implemented manual focus ring and a proper depth-of-field scale of the type which is absent from any other M43 lens.

Check out Robin Wong's "Pudu Wet Market" photos to see what I mean by tight shooting in an Asian market (if the link below doesn't work, just go to his website and click on the Olympus EP-3 Review Part 1, Pudu Wet Market):